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Fines for 'unauthorised absence' from school

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Comments

  • Think it varies by council but you might be ok, our local council only issue fines for over 5 days absence, you are allowed 10 absence marks which is am and pm registration for 5 days before a fine is produced.
  • Loz01
    Loz01 Posts: 1,848 Forumite
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    Surely if its 4 days before the end of term they could just call them in sick? Judging by my niece and nephews schools, they dont seem to do anything productive in the week leading up to the end of term. I'd be loathed to pay £120 for them missing 4 days of not a lot.
  • Spendless
    Spendless Posts: 24,390 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Name Dropper
    Ok, its not me taking them on holiday, its their dad and his partner. Between them, theres 4 kids, 2 of them are 17. They want a family holiday and this is the only way they can pay for one. These arent circumstances that ''people should have thought of before having kids'' FGS.
    It would probably be 4 days off just before easter half term. I send my kids to school unless very badly ill, their attendance is very high. This is one of the only years where none of the 4 kids have exams or anything super important like that going on.
    Also my ex and his partner have said they will pay the whole fine because it was their idea. I can't afford to take them abroad or even pay to get their passports, so I really want them to go for the experience.

    Thanks to those who answered my question.
    What are the 17 year olds doing? If it's A levels, I'd check first in case they miss anything. If it's a BTEC, it might be ok if their assignments are in or can be done on return. If they're on apprenticeships then I'm guessing (I don't know) that it would follow the same principle as anyone working and have to apply for annual leave.

    Just with you saying it's Dad and his partner's idea, it's possible kids don't live with him/them and they aren't completely aware of any issue surrounding take them out and their examination work (I think it's really difficult to go away outside of the school hols once kids are in examination years, I've got one child in yr10 and the other in the equiv of yr13 and it's been this way for me for several years- even some school holiday weeks are difficult to go away in)
  • Fireflyaway
    Fireflyaway Posts: 2,766 Forumite
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    zagfles wrote: »
    Well don't use "holiday companies" then! We've been restricted to the school holidays for the last 13 years, but we've always managed to get good value holidays by avoiding using rip-off package holiday companies.

    If you book it all yourself, go somewhere where it's off-peak locally (eg in most of Europe, second half of August is off-peak), you can get good deals.

    Having said that you can sometimes get good value packages if you book late (don't believe these "early booking discounts", booking late is usually a lot cheaper although obviously you risk less choice) - we went to the Canaries in the Easter holidays last year for £1400 for 3 adults and a 16 year old, so £350pp which wasn't bad.

    It doesn't apply to me. My child is at an independent school so we holiday outside of the usual school holidays. For people it does apply to I still maintain its unfair. My holiday would cost an extra £1500 had we booked to travel 2 weeks later. Its unfair on hard working families who are being charged over the odds.
  • takman
    takman Posts: 3,876 Forumite
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    It doesn't apply to me. My child is at an independent school so we holiday outside of the usual school holidays. For people it does apply to I still maintain its unfair. My holiday would cost an extra £1500 had we booked to travel 2 weeks later. Its unfair on hard working families who are being charged over the odds.

    How is it unfair and how are they being charged over the odds?? If the holiday companies reduced their prices by any significant amount they would go out of business.

    When this subject came up before i worked out how much Center Parcs could afford to reduce their prices by and made ZERO profit. The result was £50 a week, which i'm sure you agree would make minimal difference.
  • maman
    maman Posts: 29,348 Forumite
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    Some appalling reasoning for taking children out of school going on here.
    As well as the academic side, schools try to prepare children for adult life, encourage responsibility, hard work, honesty etc. Yet so many posters think it's OK to ignore rules if you don't like them and set that example to their children.

    If posters behaved like this with employers, they'd soon be shown the door.
  • maman wrote: »
    Some appalling reasoning for taking children out of school going on here.
    As well as the academic side, schools try to prepare children for adult life, encourage responsibility, hard work, honesty etc. Yet so many posters think it's OK to ignore rules if you don't like them and set that example to their children.

    If posters behaved like this with employers, they'd soon be shown the door.

    School isn't employment though.

    Personally I think that's a good thing, it shouldn't be. You're in work an awful long time once you finish education, but you only get one childhood!
  • maman
    maman Posts: 29,348 Forumite
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    School isn't employment though.

    Personally I think that's a good thing, it shouldn't be. You're in work an awful long time once you finish education, but you only get one childhood!

    And you can learn lessons in childhood that are with you for life.
  • Spendless
    Spendless Posts: 24,390 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Name Dropper
    'Life' doesn't always fit in the 13 weeks that school is closed for!

    As for some lessons that school teach. :rotfl::rotfl:

    Great example today of the SLT believing the first story they were told instead of actually looking into it. If my boss went off towards me in the same way she'd be subject to a disciplinary after having a complaint put in to HR. Thankfully most workplaces are nothing like school, perhaps bar the odd exception of somewhere like Sports Direct. ;)

    Oh and these fixed penalty notices, reading an article earlier about FOI requests towards them. They cost more to administer than they collect in fines. Any surplus money from any LA has to go to DofE, they have never received a penny.
  • zagfles
    zagfles Posts: 21,253 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Name Dropper Chutzpah Haggler
    It doesn't apply to me. My child is at an independent school so we holiday outside of the usual school holidays. For people it does apply to I still maintain its unfair. My holiday would cost an extra £1500 had we booked to travel 2 weeks later. Its unfair on hard working families who are being charged over the odds.
    Yeah it's unfair that some people get 0.1% interest and others get 5%. It's unfair that some people pay the rip-off "standard" gas/electric tariffs from the big suppliers. It's unfair that some people pay 39% APR on their credit cards and others get a 0% 18 month deal.

    Put a little effort in and it's easy to avoid rip-off prices in the school holidays. Such as going somewhere where the schools aren't off - UK school holidays aren't the same as other countries - even within the UK eg England & Scotland. Such as booking independantly rather than lazily only looking at packages.
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